I've done my waiting!

We’re more than halfway through Game of Thrones season 7, and Gendry hasn’t rowed by once. This is clearly a draconian mistake of gargantuan proportions!

Oh, Game of Thrones. The fantasy epic has definitely had its ups and downs, but seven seasons in and the show has never been better.

In fact, season 7 has been so incredible, it’s made me come to appreciate those six years of snail-paced setup and detours a lot more. No, I don’t think the showrunners always planned to pay everything off in such spectacular ways, or speed up the story in a quest to wrap up the adaptation of a still-unfinished tale, but I don’t care. It’s great.

Bring me a Stark reunion every week, gimme all that Jon/Dany sexual tension, let Cersei burn King’s Landing to the ground and bring it all to a close with an epic dragon vs ice dragon vs Night King vs Ghost showdown. BRING IT.

There’s just one tiny little thing that’s missing from this joyful victory tour of Westeros: The Gendry of Thrones, First of His Name, Bastard King of Westeros, The One Who Rows, The Prince That Was Promised (To Me).

Aka this dude:

“Who, me?”

Yes, Gendry, you still matter (to me).

Aaaand there he goes. 😭

Gendry Waters (oh, the irony) is a secondary character in the George R.R. Martin book series who vanished after saving Brienne in A Feast for Crows. His journey in the show has been a bit different, but unfortunately, the vanishing part remains the same.

He is the last surviving bastard of Robert Baratheon, raised in Fleabottom and helped out of the city by Varys after Cersei began killing off Robert’s illegitimate offspring to strengthen her own son Joffrey (not Robert’s actual child)’s claim to the throne.

After escaping King’s Landing with Arya and traveling with her for a while, Gendry joined up with the Brotherhood Without Banners, only to promptly be sold to Melisandre for two bags of gold.

She informed him of his parentage and proceeded to bring him to Dragonstone, intending to use his king’s blood to strengthen his uncle Stannis’ tie to the Lord of Light.

Now, last we saw of Gendry, he was rowing away, helped along by Davos Seaworth and presumably headed for King’s Landing. That was four seasons ago.

Gendry could have died a million ways since then: he can’t swim, he’s never been in a row boat before, and even if he did make it to King’s Landing, he could have easily been swept up in Cersei’s wildfire massacre.

And yet, surely, the last surviving member of the Baratheon bloodline, the only serious non-Targaryen contender for the throne and Arya’s true love can’t just have died off-screen!

We’ve all been fully expecting that Gendry will row back onto the screen and into our hearts at least once before the series is over, and Joe Dempsie showing up at the season 7 premiere red carpet indicated — nay, PROMISED — that his return would happen this season.

There are now only three episodes left of Game of Thrones season 7, so surely, Gendry’s return is imminent. Especially seeing as Daenerys has just arrived at King’s Landing with Drogon; she barbecued the Lannister army, and is presumably about to finally make her claim to the Iron Throne.

Not only could Daenerys and Cersei finally come head-to-head next week (god, I hope so), but this could also be the episode in which Gendry finally shows his glorious face again. After all, even though Gendry is a bastard, the people who considered Robert the rightful king of Westeros might support Gendry over Cersei or Dany (or Jon).

His return this week seems even more likely given that, in the cast listing for next week’s episode on IMDb, Joe Dempsie’s name appeared for a hot second but was promptly removed.

IMDb is never completely reliable, so this could as easily have been an error as it could be HBO trying to hide their secrets, but it would make a lot of sense to re-introduce him at this point in the story as an unforeseen obstacle on Dany’s path to the Iron Throne. Maybe he’s even the mysterious person who saved Jaime from Drogon’s flames! (Okay that was almost definitely Bronn, but a girl can dream.)

And hopefully, if Davos and/or Varys is around, Gendry will actually survive this encounter with Dany and her dragons, too, and can go on to fulfil his blacksmith potential and aid Jon in his dragonglass quest (and then go to Winterfell).

He could of course also be hanging out in the Dragonstone caves, or maybe he’s somehow found himself at the Wall (since the episode is called “Eastwatch,” he would likely be at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea). I really don’t care where he is, to be honest, as long as he’s around.

It’s been 34 episodes of Game of Thrones without Gendry. That’s 34 episodes too many. It’s time to row his boat ashore!

Do you think we’ll see Gendry in the next episode of ‘Game of Thrones’?

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